Plagiarism in the West End

My wife and I went to the Arts Theatre last night to see The Madness of George Dubya. We had heard and read so much about the play, and we were very excited to see a satire on our current Buffoon-in-Chief, not to mention his lapdog Tony Blair; a satire which is desperately need in the States but which, apparently, can only be done in London. The theatre was packed and the excitement was palpable as we waited for the play to open. We were very pleased to see so many people who shared our excitement -- and a lot of them seemed to be Yanks as well.

Let me just say before I go any further that The Madness of George Dubya, alas, is not a very good play. In fact, it seems to me that it's not a play so much as a publicity stunt. The actors, who wade through this material with professionalism and aplomb, are not to be blamed for this plane wreck, either. The fault lies entirely with the playwright. But I can't even get to the point of posting a review of this play, because as it wore on, I realized (to my astonishment) that The Madness of George Dubya is a plagiarism of Doctor Strangelove !

The play's website says: "playwright Justin Butcher has decided – like a mad fool – to fling together an anti-war play in a matter of days, rehearse it in a week and bung it on in London. " That sounds like an awful lot of work in an incredibly short period of time. Actually, these days it's easy. All you have to do is find a script that already exists, like, say, this one, and cut and paste your way to a West End premiere!

"Butcher's basic narrative is borrowed," says The Guardian. The flyer I have for the play indicates that it's "based on" Doctor Strangelove. This play, unfortunately, isn't "based on" Doctor Strangelove, nor is the material "borrowed". It's stolen. In very large measure it is a word-for-word ripoff of Doctor Strangelove, with only the most inconspicuous mention -- not even a proper credit -- given to Stanley Kubrick, no credit whatsoever given to Terry Southern, who co-wrote the script with Kubrick, and no credit whatsoever to Peter George III, who wrote the original novel Red Alert, upon which Strangelove itself was based. (Kubrick, unlike Butcher, believed in giving credit where credit was due.) There is nothing on the marquee or the program to indicate any other writer, or any other source, other than Butcher. If you didn't know the movie, or you didn't know it well, you'd think that Butcher had written the entire thing himself, and I believe that was the intent. To add insult to injury, the program (which costs an additional £1.50) actually includes the following sentence: "Respectfully dedicated to the memory of the great Stanley Kubrick."

Perhaps by now it should go without saying that I know Doctor Strangelove really well. Well enough, in fact, that I was whispering the next line of dialogue into the ear of my incredulous wife in order to persuade her that the dialogue was, by and large, purloined.

Incredibly, not a single review I have read has mentioned that the play contains entire paragraphs of dialogue lifted verbatim from the movie. Only the names have been slightly modified: General Ripper, for example, becomes General Kipper. Group Captain Mandrake becomes Windbreak. Other name changes are similarly clever on the part of the playwright. Instead of the President in the War Room, we have the Prime Minister. And so on.

The overall plot is exactly the same: General Ripper, er, Kipper, orders his bombers to attack the enemy, using a coded order to which only he has the key ("OPE" in the movie, "PBF" in the play). Exactly as in the movie, the general is obsessed with the purity of our bodily fluids. Exactly as in the movie, the chain of command tries desperately to recall the bombers before their attack is successful, which would precipitate a worldwide nuclear war.

Oh, wait -- he changed the ending. In the play, they succeed at stopping the holocaust.

Look, if you don't believe me, just try this: Go see the play, then rent the movie. Or see the movie first, then go see the play. You'll be astonished. You might be a little disgusted.

One review after another which I found on-line has approvingly quoted the assessment of one general on the number of deaths to be expected in the impending war: "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed." That came straight from the movie -- and it was even delivered better. By George C. Scott.

There is some original material in this play (including some moderately clever songs, one of which is by Tom Lehrer, who is credited). By and large, the original material falls flat on its face, especially an overlong lecture about the history of the Middle East's oppression by the West. This lecture was mind-numbingly boring and redolent of the dullest kind of amateur theater (I've written enough boring theater to know). But this is only a minor sin, especially since Butcher commits it with the best of intentions. It's the plagiarism that really burns me about this production.

If you took out all of Kubrick's words, all of Southern's words, and all of George's words, and all you had left were Butcher's words, you'd probably be left with about one-third of the play intact.

I don't yet know whether the producers of this play actually secured the proper permissions to use Doctor Strangelove. I doubt that they have -- otherwise there would be a conspicuous credit -- but it's actually beside the point. If The Madness of George Dubya had truly been based on, or inspired by Doctor Strangelove, it could have used the same ideas, a similar plotline, and similar characters, all without violating the original text. It could have treated the original material with the respect that it deserves. Inspiration is not the same as Duplication. Even getting the formal permission to use someone else's words is very different from writing them down verbatim and claiming them as one's own. You'd think a man who read Classics at Oxford would know that. You'd think.